Lessons from an Avian Challenged Dove

Shikoba prefers the term Dove to Pigeon. The latter conjures up images of park scavengers who peck at the ground and then fly up to poo on your head. However, the former “dove” is a symbol of love and peace. I’d rather be a dove too.  

We rescued Shikoba after the tornado pushed her from her nest and left her homeless. She was hunkered into the long grass and as a baby bird, we weren’t sure of her species. The mother was nowhere to be found and if we left her overnight, she would have been likely eaten by a predator, like a raccoon or maybe a rat. Instead, we put her inside our bird rescue box (yes, we have one) and attempted to save her life.  

It wasn’t easy.  

Challenge 1: Shikoba refused to open her beak to be fed “baby bird mash”.  In desperation we pried her tiny beak open and fed her by syringe for 6 weeks! That was multiple times a day.  

Challenge 2: She got sour crop at 4 weeks. Many u-tube videos later, found us forcing her to vomit up the mash from her crop, pouring water down her throat and turning her upside down to drain it out. And then repeat again several times. I’m still traumatized. 

Challenge 3: Shikoba broke her beak so she could not eat seeds. More bird mash feeding although she seemed to have learned better how to eat from sryinge and we got into a good rhythm together. Eventually her beak healed and she graduated back into seeds. 

Challenge 4: Shikoba flew free (celebration)!  Only to lose all but one of her tail feathers to our dog when Shikoba attempted to return home for a visit after two days of freedom.  We recaptured her and back into the bird house for recovery.  Happily, she regrew her feathers but she decided that our garage was her safe haven. She flew out to “play” in our garden during the day but returned every night to sleep in the garage. 

What does have this to do with writing?  Persistence. 

There were many times when I thought that Shikoba’s mother bird pushed her out of the nest using the tornado as an excuse. Shikoba seemed determined to derail our attempts to save her life. I will admit that there were times when I wanted to set her “free”, lock her out of the garage and let nature do its thing. Yet both she and us persisted. Sometimes writing feels like this. You complete your novel, memoir, short story, or even a flash fiction piece — hurrah! But now there are new challenges: editing, query letters,  synopsis writing, more editing, rejection letters, more re-writes. Sometimes it feels like you aren’t making forward progress because you get sour crop, your beak breaks, you lose your tail feathers.  Yet those who are successful, continue to persist against these challenges. When feeling frustrated, I think of Shikoba and her will to continue.   

Stories need humour: Shikoba gave us lots of laughs. Whenever we had visitors, Shikoba liked to sit on one of the guest’s head, especially anyone with slightly frizzy hair, to the delight of most everyone. She would perch on Kim’s shoulder, like a want-to-be parrot to a pirate, and tour the garden. During construction tasks, she liked to sit on the handle of the chop saw, unafraid of the noise it made.  She was one tough dove. 

One day in October, Shikoba disappeared. I saw her out in the garden during the day and when I went to close the garage at night, she wasn’t around. I called to her—she usually came to her name— but nothing.  I searched around for signs that something may have caused injury to her, but nothing. After a few days and no dove, it was clear that Shikoba had moved on. Although we were worried about our little dove, this was also ideal as we had not wanted to keep her but only to allow her to survive and then be free.

Is this not the same for our stories? We create them, nurture them and sometimes hold onto them because they are precious. But there comes a time when we want to let it go and hopefully be read by others out there in the world. It takes bravery to get to that next step: to put your stories out there to be read and potentially criticized by others.    

We created the following story for Shikoba: she migrated south and spent the winter on the beach around Cape May. Now that spring is here, we await her return… or perhaps she’s found new friends and will hang out with them. Either is fine. And if you see an overly friendly dove in your yard, it might be  Shikoba. Please give her extra seeds for us.